So does that mean that the idea that log burners are "carbon neutral" if you replant the equivalent of what you burn is a bit dodgy too then?
That's where you start getting into hazy ground. If you exclude any fossil energy used to get the wood from a forest to a burnable condition by your stove then, if it was replaced with a similar or longer-lived species then yes, you'd probably be close. There are some very interesting (if you're a soil scientist nerd like me) feedbacks that go on in the soil when you chop down and replant trees that might mean more stabilised C in the soil is lost, which would definitely count against C neutrality. If the wood was fertilised, then the cost of that fertiliser in terms of fossil energy also needs to be considered.
So in a nutshell, if your wood is grown in a fertilised, intensive plantation a long way from where you need is and is kiln dried along the way then I'd suggest you'd be on pretty shakey ground to call it C neutral. The shocking thing is of course that when you consider all aspects of just about any human action to generate energy, very little is.
If coal is left in the ground it stays as coal. If wood is left on the floor, it rots, releasing its CO2. Particulates is a different matter though.
The amount of wood left rotting after logging ops round my way due to FC refusal to allow anybody to pick up is scandalous.
The amount of wood left rotting after logging ops round my way due to FC refusal to allow anybody to pick up is scandalous.
But that rotting wood is helping to protect the soil, building its organic matter and returning nutrients. It also forms a habitat for a huge array of invertebrates which in turn are food for birds and small mammals. The FC have actually put a fair amount of research into management of residues over the years, including funding a friend of mine's PhD on the topic 😉
ftfy 😀The amount of wood left rotting after logging ops round my way due to FC refusal to allow anybody to pick up is [s]scandalous[/s] very good for wildlife.
I get the full impact of cutting, processing etc must be considered, importing cheap kiln dried eastern European wood is a travesty. Burn a local product and it could be better, burn a local waste product (arb waste) it could be very good?
[quote=zokes ]The shocking thing is of course that when you consider all aspects of just about any human action to generate energy, very little is.
Yeah it is a tough problem.
Zones/Nick - no, its more like the forestry vehicles ploughing through the trees they don't want (silver birch) leaving them smashed in a foot deep tangled carpet, to get to the prize trees they want. It's an utter mess.
The shocking thing is of course that when you consider all aspects of just about any human action to generate energy, very little is.
At the moment it all forms of energy generation are not carbon neutral.
I guess it may be possible in the future but not currently.
What we really need to do is reduce our consumption. A lot of things have got more efficient be we have a lot more of them and they are bigger.
Combustion engines produce a lot more power with less fuel and cleaner emissions but our cards are heavier and more luxurious than ever before.
Look at the size of our fridge, TV's, washing machines.
How many boxes of electronics do we have?
We have LED bulbs so now we have loads of lights. When I was a lad, the living room was the only room that wasn't lit by a single 60w bulb! (Except the kitchen which had a tube. :-))
I am typing this at my workstation which has 2 flat panel monitors! It's madness really.
Who said you can't stay warm?
I'm not sure what you think the "Powers That Be" should be doing?
What is the "Big Picture"?
Do you want a ban on cruise ships and motor racing or not?
I mean there are now exhaust emissions restrictions on Main Battle Tanks. Now that is madness
You miss my point completely, why put restrictions on one thing when you allow another, due to amount of tax that can be levied.
Experience of running pellet boilers and supplying timber for chip at work suggests that these sort of boilers have a cost equivalent to oil, but this is obscured by RHI payments. RHI payments also require accredited timber now, which will help improve the quality and consistency of the burn. As we can sell timber that is FSC accredited we are in a good position as we fulfil the chain of custody for chip producers. This also means we leave 18% wood on site as habitat/dead.
The processing of chip is far from 'green', hence the cost. Batch boilers are greener in that they require less processing, but then the owner has to get their hands dirty tending it once each day. Shocking.
The flattened silver birch would probably never stayed up once exposed, it may have even blown over after being in the blocks protection.
Carbon sequestration is an accounting dark art. For most species, the optimum take up of CO2 is in the 10-50 year span where growth is most rapid. The best way to then lock this carbon is to use it in construction or furniture or just making stuff where that carbon can be locked away for decades before burning.
If anyone wants to find me in a mid Wales pub, I could go on for ages about this sort of stuff.
BTW, I have a wood burner due to being well over my head in free firewood, despite having a well insulated house with mains gas.
I recently had a wood burner fitted.
My house has mains gas central heating, but we its a C19th build with a solid wall gable end. We had a lot of problems with condensation & moisture retention in the wall, since the stove has been fitted the wall is dry & the mould hasn't come back. That's good enough for me.
We only use the stove weekend daytimes when the central heating isn't on, it works in conjunction with the CH not replacing it.
Zones/Nick - no, its more like the forestry vehicles ploughing through the trees they don't want (silver birch) leaving them smashed in a foot deep tangled carpet, to get to the prize trees they want. It's an utter mess.
So we're talking about continuous cover forestry here? Obviously getting at the mature trees will require some ground access, but it's definitely lower impact compared to clear-felling and re-planting. Not sure what else you want, there are obvious biogeochemical and ecological reasons for leaving the unwanted wood where it falls. Timber also points out a pretty obvious forestry operations reason. Running a production forest with at least one eye on sustainability is a bit more complicated than just growing and chopping down trees.